Teaching Secrets (PDF)

Teachers and student teachers in social work will gain valuable insight into the artistry that makes truly great teaching from the accounts found in this new book. Master teachers examine the processes they use in the classroom and present them in a format that facilitates the practical application of their ideas. The teaching methods recounted here emphasize the learners as the most important component of the teaching/learning experience and demonstrate techniques to enliven and enhance the reader's own teaching methods. This vital book focuses on teaching “technologies,” defined as bodies of knowledge or skills ordered for use, that are comprised of techniques or systematic procedures that bring the technologies to life. By utilizing the techniques and technologies portrayed in this volume, social work educators at the graduate and undergraduate levels will become more effective at reaching their students and helping them grow into professional social workers.Teaching Secrets helps teachers increase the effectiveness of their teaching by demonstrating how to pay attention to acts and nuances that stimulate and assist students in their learning. Individual chapters focus on specific classroom environments, providing practical advice to improve learning in each situation. Social work teachers will discover more effective teaching through the use of student journals, the use of self in teaching doctoral research, the use of authority, and the benefits of student-student learning in work groups. Other chapters offer practical advice on reaching different groups of students such as black teachers leading white students, white teachers leading black students, and special efforts for reaching female students. This exciting book reveals that great teachers are not born but made, and shares the secrets that will help all social work educators to develop greatness in their own classrooms.